U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., exits Manhattan federal court on July 16, 2024, in New York. (Adam Gray/Getty Images/TNS)
WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service) — Former New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez’s resignation from the Senate this week will leave a noticeable gap behind on several foreign policy issues, but nowhere more so than on Cuba matters.
For years, Menendez had been the highest-ranking Democrat to favor hard-line sanctions measures toward Havana at a time when more members of his party favored an approach that focuses more on engagement.
The son of Cuban political exiles, Menendez throughout his more than 30-year congressional career had been adamant that there should be no relaxing of the 1962 embargo against Cuba, which critics argue has done little to shake the hold on power of the Castro regime while leaving the Cuban people economically poor and isolated.
Philip Brenner, a foreign policy professor at American University who specializes in U.S.-Cuba relations, said Menendez has been “a very sophisticated player at preventing change in U.S. policy toward Cuba.”
“There’s no question that with respect to the Biden administration, he has been the major influence on a tough line on Cuba,” Brenner said.
Michael Galant, senior research associate with the international team at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, said Menendez was “uniquely committed” to the Cuba embargo and “his departure is surely a good thing” for those who want it to end.
“While there are plenty of other Democrats in both the House and Senate who are wedded to economic sanctions despite their impacts on human rights, it’s unlikely that someone with that degree of power, unwavering ideological commitment to the embargo, and willingness to break ranks with the rest of the party will emerge from within the caucus any time soon,” Galant said.
Menendez announced he would resign on Tuesday under the threat of a possible expulsion vote, after he was convicted earlier this summer on 16 federal charges, including for bribery, extortion and acting as a foreign agent.
As he fought the charges, Menendez relinquished his high-profile position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he was accused of corruptly abusing to benefit the Egyptian government.
Shaping Cuba policy
Prior to that, he used his clout to shape U.S.-Cuba policy. Brenner pointed to Menendez’s willingness early in the Obama administration to threaten to withhold his vote from the must-pass fiscal 2009 omnibus spending measure because it proposed easing travel restrictions for Cuban Americans and allowing some food and medicine exports to the Caribbean country. The senator ultimately agreed to back the bill after extracting a promise from the administration to only narrowly implement the Cuba-related provisions.
When President Barack Obama in 2014 announced that the U.S. would normalize diplomatic relations with Havana, allow some limited travel and commerce with the island nation and remove it from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, Menendez lambasted the president for conducting negotiations for the détente behind his back and for compromising “bedrock principles for virtually no concessions.”
And Menendez supported a move from President Donald Trump to reverse most of Obama’s policies of engagement toward Cuba, as well as a move from then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to place Cuba back on the state sponsors of terrorism list in 2021.
The senior senator from New Jersey’s steadfast opposition to any relaxing of sanctions on Cuba is likely the biggest reason that President Joe Biden hasn’t removed Havana from the state sponsors of terrorism list despite promising during the 2020 presidential campaign to reinstate the Obama-era détente policies, Brenner said.
When the Senate was split 50-50 in the last Congress, with Democrats in control because Vice President Kamala Harris was able to cast the tie-breaking vote, Menendez could threaten to withhold his vote on key legislation such as the 2021 infrastructure law should Biden move to delist Cuba or otherwise relax sanctions. Menendez could make a credible threat because he had already shown during the Obama administration how far he was willing to take his threats, Brenner said.
Menendez’s personal relationship with Biden, which went back to their years serving together on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also helped in his influence over Cuba policy. “It was well-known that Biden was listening to Menendez on Cuba policy, and the fact is that President Biden has done very little in changing Cuba policy,” Brenner said.
Potential changes
Although Biden has a slightly better Senate majority now than he did in the last Congress, the administration may see little upside in reengaging with Havana ahead of the November elections, as that could hurt Democratic prospects in down-ballot races in Florida, which has the country’s largest population of Cuban Americans.
Florida is also home to a significant and growing community of refugees and asylum-seekers from Venezuela. Havana has been a key ally of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in his autocratic and oppressive rule of the South American country.
Other Democrats have said the Trump administration’s rationale for putting Cuba back on the state sponsor list was specious when it happened in 2021 and now no longer even exists.
The State Department says Havana was re-listed for harboring leaders of the National Liberation Army, known as ELN, designated since the 1990s as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. The ELN leaders traveled to Havana in 2017 for peace talks with the Colombian government, which were derailed after a deadly 2019 bombing of a Bogota police academy for which ELN claimed responsibility. Havana refused Colombia’s extradition demands, citing peace negotiation protocols.
But with the election of left-wing Colombian President Gustavo Petro, Bogota has reversed course on its demands for extradition of the ELN leaders. Colombia has repeatedly called for Cuba to be de-listed as a state sponsor of terrorism and argued that Havana was adhering to international protocols when it refused the extradition request from the predecessor Colombian government.
At the end of July, 46 House Democrats wrote to Biden and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to urge the administration to support the Petro government’s peace talks with ELN and to de-list Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism “in order to advance peace efforts.”
The letter was signed by multiple senior Democrats, including House Rules ranking member Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, Appropriations State-Foreign Operations ranking member Barbara Lee of California, and high-profile progressives such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Pramila Jayapal of Washington.
Brenner speculated that Biden might de-list Cuba after the November elections.
“The president could reasonably take Cuba off that list. That would have an enormous impact on Cuba’s ability to engage in international trade,” Brenner said. “And it is conceivable he might do that after the election. It would have been less conceivable if Sen. Menendez was still in the Senate.”
Opposition remains
But to push through more substantive alterations to U.S.-Cuba policy would take an act of Congress. And still standing in that way are the Senate’s other Cuban American members: Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Together with Menendez, they have been a small but effective bipartisan group thwarting for years any chance of the Senate relaxing the long-standing trade embargo and travel ban on the Caribbean country despite noteworthy interest in doing so from both Democratic progressives as well as libertarian and business-minded Republicans.
Cruz and Rubio are both expected to maintain their vociferous and vigilant opposition against any legislative measures to soften policy toward Cuba. But their opposition will also be more partisan than in the past, unless another Democrat who shares their hard-line views toward Havana joins the chamber.
In the Republican-led House, there is also strong ideological opposition to engagement with Cuba, led by a handful of lawmakers with Cuban heritage. Chief among them is Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., who chairs the Appropriations Committee’s panel on foreign aid.
And Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., a senior House appropriator, is a Democratic “torchbearer for freedom in Cuba,” said John Suarez, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, a nonprofit pushing for regime change in Cuba.
Suarez pointed out that a November 2021 vote on a House resolution offering solidarity with Cuban protesters drew support from 175 House Democrats, while just 40 Democrats voted against it.
“The bipartisan nature of advocating freedom abroad will continue,” Suarez said.
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